Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

NTFS and FAT32 question

Mar 16, 2004 9:07PM PST

I have XP Pro...my drives are all FAT32

If I convert one of my partitions to NTFS in order to overcome the 4GB file size limitation, do I also have to convert my boot drive which is FAT32 in order for XP to see the partition?

I heard that XP would still be able to see an NTFS partition even though the boot drive was still FAT32, but don't want to risk it until I know for sure.

TONI

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re:NTFS and FAT32 question
Mar 16, 2004 9:12PM PST

"If I convert one of my partitions to NTFS in order to overcome the 4GB file size limitation, do I also have to convert my boot drive which is FAT32 in order for XP to see the partition?"

No.

"I heard that XP would still be able to see an NTFS partition even though the boot drive was still FAT32, but don't want to risk it until I know for sure."

There are many more myths out there like that. For years, Many NT/Windows 2000 machines booted from FAT16 drives since repair tools and documentation were lacking so we could boot DOS and work on the system. Today, it's rare to not have a bootable CD, the recovery console and more tools on CD. The upshot/outfall of this was some myth, but the data drives/volumes were NTFS.

Bob

- Collapse -
Re:NTFS and FAT32 question
Mar 17, 2004 12:11PM PST

Since both NTFS & FAT32 are compatible with XP it doesn't matter if different partitions on your computer use different file system as XP can access them all.

But the superiority, stability & robustness of NTFS over Fat32 in addition to the no limit file size makes it logical to convert all partitions to NTFS.
Why bother to use FAT32?

BTW, you can safely convert your C Drive to NTFS without affecting XP.